


I Am Still Right Here

by StanningJay



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:53:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22535026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StanningJay/pseuds/StanningJay
Summary: This is for the Quakerider Writers’ Guild First Time Challenge! My prompt was “first time you hear them sing.”I decided to set this as a onesided (or so she thinks) conversation between Daisy and Robbie’s charger during the season four episode “Deals With Our Devils.” We, the audience know Daisy isn’t alone in the Charger, and that Robbie can hear everything she says.
Relationships: Daisy Johnson/Robbie Reyes - Relationship, QuakeRider - Relationship
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22
Collections: QuakeriderValentine'sDay





	I Am Still Right Here

Daisy was afraid. She’d almost forgotten that being part of a team meant opening yourself up to the fear of loss. Almost.

Seeing Mack strap his shotgun axe aggressively over his shoulder and ride his bike straight out the back of the quinjet was terrifying enough; seeing his kind, gentle eyes burn hot with otherworldly Fire was something else entirely. 

She seized the keys to Robbie’s Charger without really thinking and took off after Mack.It wasn’t until a few blocks later, well after she’d squealed off in hot pursuit of the fleeing motorcycle, that she caught her breath and actually thought about where she was sitting. Daisy felt lucky she was alone with no one to see the flush creeping up her cheeks. This car was a part of Robbie, and it felt strangely intimate to be sitting in the driver’s seat. Stopping at a red light, Daisy rubbed her fingertips over the nubby stitching on the leather steering wheel, picturing Robbie’s hands there, encased in the leather driving gloves he always wore. She patted the dashboard. “We’ll find him, car,” she said. 

The red light seemed to stretch on into eternity, while Mack rode ahead like a man possessed. Daisy watched as he wove dangerously through the traffic. Coulson and Fitz had already disappeared; she couldn’t lose Mack too. Robbie too, said a voice in Daisy’s head—a sly, quiet voice that had been asleep for quite some time. 

“Screw this,” said Daisy through gritted teeth. She whipped her head around, yanked the gearshift into reverse and jerked the steering wheel wildly, trusting in the car’s strange ability to repair its own damage. “Scientifically impossible self healing car,” she muttered to herself, planting boot and speeding down an alleyway much too narrow—she winced as the sparks flew against the passenger side window. The scream of metal on brick as the side of the car scraped its way through the alley rattled Daisy’s fillings, but eventually she and the charger erupted onto an adjacent street. She spun the wheel again and took off, blowing through a stop sign and ignoring the honks and screams coming from other cars. 

Looking ahead, she realized she had lost all sight of Mack. “DAMMIT!” She yelled. She couldn’t afford to dither but she had no idea which way to go. “Come on,” she pleaded, “come on car, which way?” Daisy slammed the dashboard in frustration, and the left blinker popped on of its own accord.

“Robbie?” Daisy asked the empty car in utter disbelief. She has no time to question it, so she stomped on the gas with all her strength and banged a left, trusting the car to get her where she needed to go. 

As Daisy drove, following the blinker which now seemed to work completely independent of her wishes, she talked to herself to keep her sanity. If she was being honest, though? She was talking to Robbie—much more than she’d had the chance to since they’d met. 

“I don’t know if you knew this,” she told him. “But I tailed you for quite some time before we met. FUCK OFF!” Daisy laid on the horn before flipping off a pedestrian who dove out of the street for the safety of the sidewalk after he looked up from his phone to see Daisy barreling down the street at full speed. Daisy took the next corner at two wheels. 

Panting, she continued. “Yeah, anyway. This crazy ass car makes quite an impression.” She smirked to herself in the rear view mirror. “So it was pretty easy to follow. One night, I tailed you to an old ass night club. Didn’t really have the flaming demon head vibe, so,” Daisy slammed on the breaks at an intersection, waiting for the blinker to tell her which way to turn. It pinged on: right. “Okay. Thanks.” She spun the wheel. “The lights were down so low in the bar. I ordered a scotch and soda and satalone at a high top, trying to pick you out of the crowd.”

Daisy grinned at the memory, and continued to follow the car’s lead. “I couldn’t see you, until suddenly a single spotlight hit the dingy little stage at the front of the room. Just a wooden stool and a microphone.

“Then, uh, you walked out onto the stage.” She felt herself blushing again, which was absurd. “You walked so stiff, old guitar strapped to your back, and I could see that little muscle going in your jaw—the same one I loved watching twitch while we drove around LA, looking for answers. Looking for your brother during the blackout.” Daisy had no idea why she was saying any of this. 

“Then you just sat down and started to play. No introduction, no anything. It wasn’t until you started singing that I recognized the song.”

Daisy paused, biting her lower lip, focused on the road. 

“It was ‘Hurt,’” she said. “I think you were going more for the Johnny Cash version. I wondered if you knew his version was a cover. The original is by Nine Inch Nails.” 

“Your voice...” Daisy trailed away. “I knew I had to meet you. I knew you weren’t just a killer. I could tell.”

Daisy felt a subtle tingle starting from her tailbone and rolling its way up her spine until she shivered. 

For some strange reason Daisy didn’t trust the car to keep her secrets, so she chewed her lip and drove on in silence. She didn’t tell the car that she couldn’t take her eyes of Robbie’s fingers as they brushed the guitar strings, and how she realized later that was the only time she’d ever seen his bare hands. The thought made her grin and blush. 

She didn’t tell the car how she could feel the growl of Robbie’s voice as he sang, feel it deep in her chest and low in her belly—or how it had seemed like he was singing right to her, though logically she knew that the room was dark enough to conceal her. She didn’t tell the car that the spotlight shining on Robbie’s freckles was like a constellation map of places she wanted to touch. 

Daisy sure as hell didn’t tell the car how she felt like the fire in Robbie’s eyes seemed brighter (and hotter) that night than the fire in the Rider’s eyes ever could. 

Daisy knew she had a history of not saying the things that were needed, always realizing she wanted say them when the moment was too far gone. 

She would tell Robbie though, when she saw him again. She would. Well, maybe not that last part. At the Charger’s instruction Daisy spun into a parking lot near a huge warehouse. Sure enough, Mack’s motorcycle was parked by the side door to the warehouse, tailpipe still smoking faintly.

Daisy slammed on the breaks, tires screeching as the car slid to a stop. “This must be the place,” said Daisy. She pulled out the keys and patted the car’s dashboard again in thanks.

She nearly jumped out of her skin as the radio turned on by itself. Daisy looked down at the keys in her hand, amazed. The car tuned It’s own radio back and forth, like it was chasing down something specific, and then, through the static, Daisy heard a familiar guitar riff and the opening lyrics.

_ “I hurt myself today _

_ To see if I still feel _

_ I focus on the pain _

_ The only thing that's real.”  _

**Author's Note:**

> The title from this (and the lyrics from the ending) are from the song “Hurt,” by Nine Inch Nails.


End file.
